Sonja Farak, Ex-Mass. Lab Chemist May Have Tainted Thousands Of Cases

The Associated PressThe Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — Newly released court documents indicate that a former chemist at a Massachusetts drug lab convicted of stealing drugs to feed her addictions may have tainted as many as 10,000 criminal prosecutions, not just a few dozen as first thought.

The Boston Globe (http://bit.ly/1UgwKkB) reports that Sonja Farak was addicted to cocaine, methamphetamine, and amphetamines, but between 2004 and 2013 never left her Amherst office to buy street drugs.

Farak told her therapist the drugs helped her to "get things done and not procrastinate."

Randolph Gioia, deputy chief counsel for the Committee on Public Counsel Services, the state's public defender agency, called for an "independent, completely transparent investigation" into the thousands of people potentially affected by Farak's actions.

Farak pleaded guilty in 2014 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

In a lawsuit filed July 26 <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/blind-cat-guy-taser-lj-faith_n_3714418" target="_blank">Shoshoni police chief Andy Rodriguez was accused of using a Taser</a> on a man whose lawyer refers to him as a "cat guy." A police report explains what happened when Rodriguez tried to arrest the "cat guy," L.J. Faith, for animal cruelty.
"I deployed the Taser to Faith's left side arm. During the attempt to control Faith's arm, I realized the Taser was not having a meaningful affect [sic]..."
Not deterred, the officer loaded another probe, but something went awry:
"As I was attaching [another] probe cartridge to the Taser, I had the sensation of falling backwards... I recall the Taser discharging... a probe had penetrated my right index finger... I pulled the probe out of my finger and was going to reload with a second probe cartridge when officer Cruche told me he had been hit as well. I looked over and [he] was bleeding from the top of his head near the hair line."